Seen and heard on the Chicago Transit Authority

Celling that makes you cringe; hockey Overheard

I just cringe when I hear crying fights on the phone. Last week it was a young woman in her late teens who seemed to have her head on straight -- except perhaps for her choice of boyfriends. She made quite the scene as she yelled/cried on the phone to her boyfriend at 7:30 am on the Red Line headed toward the Loop:

"Why do you always do this to me? Don't you know how critical today is? It's homework day and it's test day. If I don't go to school I'll get a big fat zero.

"You think I'm out screwing around? I'm going to school dude! It's $15,000! I work all day. I have to be at school at 5:30. What don't you understand about that."

Timely Overheard for hockey fans."Do you know what hockey is?" asked the guy talking to his girlfriend at the Red Line Monroe stop. (It was during the clinching playoff game for the Hawks on Monday night.)

"Yeah! Awesome!"

"No. Boring!"

Another stereotype, shattered.

Go Hawks!

Comments

This hockey season has been awesome. Wish I had been able to go Monday night. I went to Game 1 against the Flames and it was insane, and it seemed exponentially more insane Monday. I can't even imagine it.

Boring? I can see confusing, brutal, arbitrary ... but not boring. Not in this town. Not these days, anyway.

Anyway I heard a couple of 20-something women yesterday on the train talking about maybe taking in a game at the Cell this year. They aren't exactly sure where it is, but they heard it's a really cool stadium (!) and it has to be cheaper than going to Wrigley.

Maybe I saw you last Thursday night. I was on the 11 at about Lincoln and Belden. Two guys were crossing the street wearing Wings jerseys (one was Yzerman) and a fellow passenger implored the bus operator to run them over. The bus operator replied that he didn't know anything about hockey, which left me wondering if he did would he have run the Wings fans over? Even though I got slapped in the washroom at Joe Louis Arena in 1996 because I had the temerity to wear my Hawks jersey, I admit it's difficult to hate the only thing that's bringing Detroit joy right now.

What's the reason (if any) behind not having an El stop at the United Center? The Pink line goes right past it. I just learned the line was added a few years ago, so why not build a platform and make a stop?

There used to be a station there until the 1950s, when that portion of what is now the Blue Line was shut down. Since CTA didn't think they would ever use that section for anything other than routing, they took the station apart.

According to the latest version of the Circle Line Plan, the station is supposed to be rebuilt from scratch as part of the second phase of construction. Of course, since Circle Line planning seems to have been put on hiatus, nobody is quite sure just when that would be.

People were going crazy for the Hawks on Monday at the bar I was at. Oh, people should definitely follow the "No loud electronic devices" rule. Some lady was playing loud annoying reggaeton music this morning on the blue.

I hate when people air their dirty laundry on public transportation. Overheard a similar conversation this week, but the ahole had his phone on speaker even after he received dirty looks from everyone in the train car.....